zinc oxide

I have poor circulation evidently and had some lymph leaking from my leg.  That turned into a lesion that I was cleaning with hydrogen peroxide and treating with iodine.  It got slowly worse for a couple months.  I finally got to the wound care clinic and it's now almost healed after 3 weeks.  The only thing they did that I didn't was use gauze with zinc oxide in it.  Evidently keeping it dry was the key.  When I lived on the west side I used zinc oxide powder from the feed store to treat hoof rot and occasionally on my feet for athletes foot.  It never occurred to me to use it as a wound dressing.  I'm thinking I should order a small bag from Amazon to keep on hand.  It sure would be cheaper than professional treatment.

Hydrogen peroxide is good for initial cleaning but after the first day or 2 it does more harm than good since it not only kills germs & bad bacteria it kills good bacteria and new cellular growth & actually retards healing

Betadine/povidone-iodine is way better as long as you are not allergic to iodine

When I worked in the ER (both the level II trauma center an the VA) we used a ton of povidone-iodine cleaning sponges as well as small one use bottles of povidone-iodine

I forgot all about that with the hole on my foot but daughter reminded me & pulled out our big bottle we used on the kids & everybody else

The doc alway cleaned the foot with povidone-iodine and scrub sponge after removing all the dead skin & scraping it clean to promote healing

So, it looks like I was unintentionally sabotaging myself with the frequent cleaning with hydrogen peroxide. That's a good thing to know.